Kieran laughed. He went to the next mound, and the next, releasing the essences of the Fae-wolves, who formed then floated insubstantially over the places where their bones were buried.
Kieran flourished the sword. "Behold the souls of those who slew my grandfather." He turned to them and opened his arms. "You will surrender to me, and do what I bid. You will kill the Shifter Feline and his cubs."
The figures swirled around him, mist trailing behind them like rags. Alanna held her breath, fingers at her mouth.
This was not what she’d expected to happen. She'd changed the spells as she'd slid them into the sword, repurposing Kieran's magic with her own. She was a good enough mage to do it, to trick him, and she knew it. She'd changed the spells to that a thrust of the sword would release the souls, not enslave them. The wolves should have dispersed, their souls free for all eternity.
Instead the ethereal Lupines lingered, like wolves gathering around prey.
Prey . . .
"Kieran!" Alanna shouted. "Drop the sword. Run!"
Kieran ignored her. He swept the sword blade through the ghostlike creatures. "Obey, wraiths. Now you are mine."
The wolves circled him, their eyes glowing yellow through the mist. As one, they attacked. Kieran cried out as the pack swept down on him in wild glee, and then he began to scream.
Chapter Seven
Niall shifted to human form, watching in amazement as the ghostly wolves ripped into Kieran. They were mist and smoke--they shouldn’t be able to touch him--and yet the wolves tore at him. Kieran's pristine white cloak turned scarlet. His men at arms and attendants, instead of rushing to protect their master, turned in terror and fled.
The sword flew from Kieran’s hand, as though it propelled itself, and landed at Niall’s feet. Kieran screamed again.
The wolves ripped the prince's body apart, snarls feral as they used teeth and claws to kill. Alanna hugged her arms to her chest, her eyes wide, as her brother slowly died. His screams turned to pleas for mercy, but the wolves did not care.
One wolf finally wrenched out his throat. The Lupine stood back, muzzle covered with blood, triumph in his eyes. At the wolf's feet, Kieran's bloody body folded in on itself and crumpled to dust.
The wolves padded in a circle around the prince’s remains, then they lifted their heads and howled. It was a faint whisper of a howl, eerie and hollow, but it held a note of triumph.
The wolves shifted into a dozen men with broad shoulders and flowing hair, with the light blue eyes common to Lupines. They gave Niall and Alanna a collective look of acknowledgment, shifted back into wolves, and vanished. Wisps of smoke spun high into the sky and faded away.
Alanna ran to the fallen sword, caught it up, and rushed to Niall and his cubs. The sword sliced swiftly through the net binding Niall, and then Alanna moved to cut the ropes binding Piers and Marcus.
Both wildcat cubs shifted into boys and ran to Niall, throwing their arms around him. Tears wet Niall’s face as he knelt and gathered them in.
He looked over their heads at Alanna, who stood behind them, sword clenched in her hand, her dark eyes wild.
"Alanna," Niall said, trying to stop his voice from shaking. "What happened? What did you do?"
Alanna lifted her chin. "Kieran commanded me to make a soul-stealer, but I spelled the sword to be a soul releaser. Instead of binding the souls of those Shifters, driving it through their remains set them free." She drew shuddering a breath, looking white and sick. "At least, that’s all I meant to do. I did not realize the Shifters would decide to take their vengeance on Kieran like that. I did not know they could."
But as horrifying as Kieran’s death had been, Niall couldn’t be unhappy that the cruel Fae who’d abducted his children and would have murdered them was gone. "If they hadn’t killed him, the prince would have killed all of us."
Alanna nodded. "Me, certainly. I'd hoped that while he attacked me, you and your cubs could get away."
Niall shot to his feet. "That was your plan? For me to run away while you died? ’Tis not what Shifters do for mates, lass."
"It’s done, Niall. You must leave now. If they find you here, they will hold you responsible. Kieran’s cousin, his heir, had no love for Kieran, but he might appease his followers by making an example of you."
Niall hugged his boys close. They were scared, but unhurt, resilient lads. "And what is to say they won’t come after me and my cubs into the human world?"
"Because most Fae had no love for Kieran, either," Alanna said. "I doubt any of them will be willing to risk entering the human world to avenge his name."
"But you can not stay here, either, lass. They’ll blame you too."
Alanna gave him a long look. "Perhaps, if you exchanged your steel knives for bronze ones, I could better serve you breakfast?"
Niall’s heart thumped fast and hard. He reached for her, pulled her into the circle of his family. "You saved my boys, and me. You stay with me as long as you damn well please."
Her scent wrapped around him, fresh and graceful and beautiful. Niall wondered that he could have ever disliked it. Her scent was wrapping around his heart as well as the warmth of a new bond that had started to forge.
Alanna held the sword up to him. "This belongs to you."
Niall closed his hand around the hilt. The sword felt right in his palm, as though he’d made it especially for him to hold. And maybe he had. "A soul releaser?"
"I spelled it so that when a Shifter’s soul is in peril of being bound to its body or to another’s will, this sword will release it in peace. The Lupine souls that had been cursed to linger at their graves have at last gone to the Summerland."
Niall studied the lines and runes that ran and down the blade and the hilt. "Why did you do this? Why help Shifters? You’re Fae."
"Because many of the Fae are noble people. Some like Kieran, or our grandfather, or the ones who made and enslaved the Shifters in the first place, were cruel--even we consider them cruel. Fae have long lives, and we now live remote from the human world, which makes us view things differently. Kieran’s vengeance was that of a child pulling wings from a fly that annoyed him. I could not let him succeed."
The boys were looking at the sword too, with the bright gazes of lads fascinated by a pretty weapon. Niall saw long days ahead explaining to them why they couldn’t touch it.
"Why didn’t you tell me, lass?" he asked. "When we made the sword together, why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?"